Monday, February 2, 2009

Take learning new terms in your A&P course as seriously as you would learning vocabulary words in a foreign language course.

It sounds silly, but you learn as many new words in an A&P course as you do a beginning foreign language course. Really --there's been research to prove it!

The easiest way to learn new terms is to use the flash card method.

Yes . . . it reminds us all of elementary school, I know. But I also know that it works in college --I still use it myself. In fact, it was a college professor at St. Louis University (Dr. Steve Dina, my ecology professor) who taught me how valuable a tool this can be in a college science course when I went to him asking for help with the overwhelming terminology of his course.

An easy and effective way to use flashcards to learn A&P terms is demonstrated at my study tip on new terms at the Lion Den.

To truly understand the structure and function of the body, you have to know what the concepts really mean and how they relate to one another. And most importantly, you have to be able to apply what you've learned.

This open-source software isn't exactly the same as MS Office (of course) but the general functionality and productivity is equivalent. And the files you produce in one Office suite are able to be used in the other Office suite.

[NOTE: The newer XML default file formats used in MS Office 2007 (such as .docx, .pptx, and so on) can be opened in Open Office 3.0 but cannot be saved in those formats.]

OpenOffice.org has just released their latest version Open Office 3.0 . . . so's now is the perfect time to get on board. (or update your previous version of Open Office).

About Me

I've worked as an anatomy & physiology professor for several decades, having taught at high school, community college, and university levels. I write A&P textbooks and manuals. I am a President Emeritus of the Human Anatomy and Physiology Society (HAPS) and a founder of HAPS Institute, a continuing education program for A&P professors. I have several blogs, websites, & a podcast related to teaching and learning. And in my youth I was a wild animal trainer.